FAQ: Why does my changes not get saved, SQL CE does not commit etc.

This is a very frequently asked question in the SQL Compact forum, which I attempted to answer here: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/sqlce/thread/e7f7a713-b0fd-4716-a19d-4421e8be4c88/

An excellent approach to dealing with this Visual Studio issue is described by Dean Willson here: http://dean-o.blogspot.com/2010/03/mind-your-copy-to-output-directory.html